Advocacy in Action: Diabetes, Transgender Health, and More

What’s Happening in Washington

Diabetes Is Not Something to Play Around With – Even weeks after the recent spate of hearings about insulin pricing, Members of Congress continue to focus attention on this issue. Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), who chairs the powerful House Government & Oversight Committee released a report document the rising cost of insulin affecting millions of people with diabetes.  “Diabetes is not something to play around with. For people with diabetes, access to their medication is a matter of life and death. In spite of this, drug companies have repeatedly increased the price of their diabetes drugs, including insulin, over the past 20 years.” Cummings reported.  He also said that he’s been working behind the scenes with Health Secretary Alex Azar and congressional Republicans, though they have not yet reached a consensus.

Administration Is Playing with Protections for Transgender Patients – The Trump administration is preparing to roll back protections for transgender patients while empowering health care workers to refuse care based on religious objections.  Faith-based healthcare organizations are worried they could be forced to provide surgery, medications, or other care to help transgender people transition to the opposite sex – and several groups filed suit, arguing it violated their religious freedoms. The potential new rule would change the language around LGBTQ people in official documents, regulations and the law to represent more traditional views on relationships and rights. This includes adding references to ‘marriage between man and woman’ and removing terms such as gender rights.  The Endocrine Society is part of a group of health professional associations representing providers of all disciplines and patients across the country that has expressed our support for providing the strongest nondiscrimination protections available for LGBTQ people and will oppose the administration’s efforts.

Appropriations Fun & Games – This is the time of year when House and Senate appropriations committees are supposed to be working on their bills, however, things have been held up a bit because there is not agreement on how to handle the current statutory budget caps.  The caps, if held in place, would require severe cuts to many programs, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The House of Representatives, with its majority of Democrats, has decided to move ahead as if the caps were raised according to legislation, “Investing for the People Act (HR 2021) introduced by House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmouth (D-KY).  House Appropriators have announced that the Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee bill, which includes funding for the NIH, will be the first bill to be marked up on April 30 when lawmakers return from recess, and the full Appropriations Committee markup is planned for May 8.  Meanwhile, the Senate, with its majority of Republicans, has decided to move ahead as if the current caps are kept in place.  This should lead to widely different results in terms of funding decisions, which will have to be reconciled and passed before October 1 or we will face a government shut-down.

What We’re Working On

Diabetes Briefing – On May 2 we will partner with the Diabetes Patient Advocacy Coalition to conduct a briefing, “Moving the Needle on Diabetes” that will share information on diabetes self-management training legislation, access to affordable insulin, and prescription drug rebate reform with congressional offices.

Advocacy Campaigns – We continue to advocate to Congress to increase funding for NIH in FY2020 and reauthorize the Special Diabetes Program. It is critical that all members of Congress hear from YOU about why these issues are important!  Please join our online campaigns to tell your Representative and Senators why these issues are important.  Taking action does not take a lot of time, but it does make a big difference!